Dream a Little Dream of Me
by Sean Gaffney
Summary: Takes place after the 6th Sol Bianca the Legacy OVA. Feb and April discuss dreams.


Dream a Little Dream of Me  
  
by Sean Gaffney  
  
Sol Bianca (C) 2001 Pioneer/Emotion/all its other creators. This is based on the 6-part Sol Bianca: the Legacy series, not the 2-part Sol Bianca series from ADV.  
  
This fic takes place after the 6th OVA, and has spoilers up through the ending.  
  
  
"Have you got that?"  
  
"I think so..."  
  
"Good, because if this ship is attacked again, we're going to be putting a lot of the burden on you."  
  
Janny looked up from her gun. "Jun, could you not be so cold?"  
  
Jun glanced over. "YOU'RE telling me not to be cold?"  
  
"Hey, I'm just saying we're trying to train the kid, not scare her out of her wits."  
  
Mayo looked down, not saying anything. She still didn't talk much, though was getting better at basic conversations.  
  
Jun raised her hand. "I'm just trying to prepare her. I know I don't have to worry about her skills. She almost knows more about the inside of this ship than I do now."  
  
Mayo flushed, and Jun patted her on the shoulder.  
  
"But April is having us do more dangerous stuff. I know you get off on that sort of thing, Janny, but if the ship gets hurt, I'll be totally occupied with G. We need an engineer."  
  
"She'll be fine. You can't prepare for everything."  
  
Jun looked up, surprised. "April. We haven't seen much of you lately."  
  
The blonde smiled. "I've been around. Sorry for not hanging out as much. Anyway, we've got someplace to be now."  
  
Janny stood up. "I was looking forward to that. Sitting around makes me edgy."  
  
Mayo was staring at April. "Are you going to talk to Feb?"  
  
Jun gasped. "Mayo!"  
  
Mayo didn't back down. She had been noticing Feb withdrawing again lately, and didn't like it. She didn't like seeing herself in others. And she may have been young, but she was old enough to know that only April could save Feb from that.  
  
Luckily, April didn't seem to mind. She smiled warmly. "It's OK, Jun. And yes... Feb and I are going to talk. I've had my reasons for avoiding it..." she paused and looked to the side for a moment, "but I think I'm ready."  
  
Mayo smiled, as did Janny. Jun wasn't as forthcoming. "April, are you sure -- "  
  
April waved her hand. "I am, I am. Don't worry about me. Everything's going to be just fine."  
  
Jun frowned briefly, but then looked up. "Well, I wish you luck, then."  
  
Janny couldn't resist chiming in. "Say, think now she'll have incentive to actually chip in and do something? After all, you could always withhold..." she trailed off with a grunt. April was already walking away.  
  
"Ah well," she finished. "About fucking time."  
  
Mayo smiled, and gripped Jun's hand. Jun looked at her face, and couldn't help but smile as well.  
  
***  
  
Feb lay on her bed, staring out the large bay window at the stars laid out before her. She had no idea why the Sol Bianca was designed this way, but didn't complain. The combination of future technologies with "Earth" decor appealed to something within her.  
  
She sat up, and took hold of her wineglass. It was empty again, a fact she quickly sought to remedy. Feb didn't know where she'd be without wine. Probably thinking too much, as usual.  
  
Thinking of her.  
  
She looked up, startled, at a knock on her door. "Can I come in?"  
  
Speak of the devil and you see her horns.  
  
Feb got up, setting the wineglass down. Last time they'd really talked, she'd just been cut by it.  
  
After April hit her.  
  
She realized she was feeling small and scared again, and wondered if she'd ever stop feeling that way.  
  
April came in, looking calm and collected as usual. She had so much poise, held herself with such grace and dignity...  
  
April sat down. "I'm sorry."  
  
Feb blinked. "What do you mean?"  
  
"We should have had this talk a month ago, when we left the Earth. But I was recovering from a lot of things then, and I couldn't."  
  
Feb felt her heart start to beat faster. "What do you want to talk about?"  
  
"Dreams," April said simply.  
  
Feb sat down on the bed, not trusting her legs. "You once told me it was never too early or too late to dream."  
  
"And I meant it. But I had my own dreams... and I didn't want to deal with anything else while I was still dreaming them."  
  
"Percy, you mean?" Feb said. If they were going to have this talk, she wasn't going to hold back or be meek. She'd waited too long for this, had been submissive and yielding too many times. That wasn't what April needed.  
  
It wasn't what a pirate should be.  
  
"Yes, Percy," April said. She looked up at the ceiling. "I almost fell in love with him, you know. If we'd had more time... it would have happened."  
  
"I know," Feb said. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her tarot cards, turning over the top card. She knew what it would be even without looking at it.  
  
April looked down. "The Lovers," she said.  
  
Feb nodded, and smiled.  
  
"But it's upside down."  
  
"Who said it was your fortune? It looks right side up to me."  
  
"Two women and a man, I see. How prophetic."  
  
Feb picked the card up again, holding it out to April. "According to the tarot, one woman is supposed to be the innocent virgin, while the other is a beautiful, seductive vixen."  
  
"Interesting..."  
  
"I need to find a set with two vixens on it now, I suppose."  
  
April startled, then grinned. Then she turned serious. "Feb..."  
  
Feb got up and walked over to the window. "Do you remember when you asked me to join you?"  
  
"Are you kidding," April laughed. "It's engraved into my eyes."  
  
"I was running away, really. I thought I'd start over. And I did, but in all the wrong ways. I became a child again, petulant and spoiled. And lazy. The only reasons I did anything were to have fun. I can't imagine what you saw in me."  
  
"I hate when you do this to yourself," April said.  
  
"April, why did you bother coming back to get me? Do you know what that did to me? What seeing you trying to rescue... even after all I'd done or hadn't done... what that did to my soul?"  
  
There was a long silence. Finally April felt the words come to her, slowly and carefully. "I wanted us to be a team. The four of us, all united against the world. Even five of us, when Mayo came on board. I convinced myself that we were going after you because you were a crewmember, and we didn't abandon the crew.  
  
"The only problem was nobody believed me. Jun and Janny knew exactly why I was going after you. Mayo too, I think. It wasn't because you were part of the crew. It was because you were *the* most important part of the crew. To me."  
  
Feb thought she might pass out. This was exactly what she had wanted to hear from April, yet it was almost making her sick. She could feel the words trying to get out of her throat. Insults, self-loathing. Saying April deserved better, that she wasn't worth anything.  
  
She looked at April's face, and saw what might, in a dim light, be passion there.  
  
She took that self-loathing and tossed it out the window.  
  
"You told everyone, back on Earth, that we were starting over."  
  
April nodded. "We are."  
  
"I've already started over once. It didn't work out the way I'd wanted to. I let myself get caught up in everyone's lives. I let myself hope. I let myself dream. I'm scared I'll lose that dream, the way Gunther did. It may not be too late to dream... but what if the dream dies?"  
  
April got up, and joined Feb at the window. "Then you dream again."  
  
Feb turned, startled.  
  
"A friend once told me that 'dreamers may die, but the dream is eternal'. I think he's gotten it backwards. Dreams die all the time... paths not taken, mistakes made, things we wanted to be but never were. But what makes us better than anyone else is our ability to dream again. To take what we have of our lives, and forge new dreams, new aspirations. The dreamer... not individually, but as a concept... is humanity's strongest part. And some day, I hope Gunther understands that. I only grasped it recently."  
  
Feb was mesmerized by April's speech. She felt her hand reach out, seemingly of its own accord, to take April's own. She couldn't hold back anymore.  
  
"I love you."  
  
April blushed, but still remained smiling. "I know. That's why I waited, didn't have this talk until now. I wanted to grieve, wanted to get over Percy's death. But now I have, and I can dream again. And I have lots of dreams, Feb. I dream of the Sol Bianca becoming something more than simply a pirate ship. I dream of Mayo growing up and finally breaking out of her shell. And I dream of you, Feb. You are a dream to me."  
  
Feb smiled, then pulled back. "I'm sorry,"  
  
"What? Why?" April said.  
  
"You... you are *everything* to me."  
  
April nodded, and leaned over to whisper in Feb's ear. "But that's alright. Because if you have me... then you have my dreams as well. You don't just get the parts you like."  
  
Feb's breath caught. She couldn't take much more of this. "April..."  
  
And then they kissed.  
  
And it was everything they'd dreamed it could be.  
  
END  
  
Notes: Short and sweet. Thanks to Lara, Krista, Jomini and Donny for prereading. Feedback to gaffney@iconn.net.  
  
--SG, February 18, 2001  



End file.
